Whats wrong with the forum and how to correct it?

Moderating.

It can become a life killer if you are not very careful, a long time ago, when things like broadband were just a distant dream, there was a massive system called Compuserve, which was a colossal worldwide operation, and one of the services it had were a whole range of forum structures, and some of them were operated as a profit making business by an external company, and it operated a number of fora that covered computer games and the like.

One of those fora was Flight Simulation, and it was massive, and there were a whole range of moderators, there was the Site moderator, (Wizop), a substantial number of Forum moderators, who ranged over all the sub forums, and then a significant number of category moderators, who tended to operate in one or two specific areas depending on their experience and knowledge of the sections. The Wizop was the only person who received any remuneration, and the other moderators received free access to Compuserve, which in those days was a worthwhile benefit, as it otherwise cost a monthly fee to be a member, and in those days, things like Microsoft support was found on Compuserve, along with many other major software vendors

The Wizop was God as far as decisions went, and tended to be very remote from day to day activity, and not very visible at all. The forum mods had their own private area in which they could discuss "issues", and move controversial messages into, so that they could be discussed, or reviewed for "legal safety", or for a number of other reasons, and the category moderators could move things into that area, but not actually see what was happening to messages, or the discussions around them, and there was a VERY hard and fast rule that disagreeing with a moderator was tantamount to suicide, a member who even expressed dissent along the lines of some of the comments in this thread was very likely to be either suspended, or perma banned, and in those days, rejoining with a new name was not easy, due to the way that the internet tracked where you were coming from, and a rejoin was taken VERY seriously indeed.

The issue was that EVERY message in the forum had to be read by a moderator, and it could become a massive task if something major happened, although it was a flight simulation forum, there were "real world" aviation sections, which could get VERY busy if there was an accident of some nature, and it got every bit as heated as Pprune gets on occasions now.

So, that was Compuserve, and as things grew, over time, change happened, and through a whole range of circumstances, I ended up as the No 2 Wizop to the owner of the forum that took over the Flight Simulation forum from Compuserve when they changed direction, and abandoned forums.

We were BUSY, and due to the nature of the way it operated, one of the senior Wizops, (there were 4 of us) had to read EVERY post that went through the system, ideally within 6 hours of it being posted. That became a MASSIVE undertaking, due to the volume of posts.

In the end, it got to be too much, and I moved on to a less stressful life, simply because I didn't have a life because of the pressures of keeping the forum alive. We could not spend time in complex discussions with someone over why we'd removed or edited a post they'd made, as if we got sucked into discussions about the "why" or the "how", it could run to dozens of messages, over countless days, and the rest of the housekeeping had to be done, as there were very real reasons for watching very carefully that certain legal restrictions were not breached, and even though the forum structure here on Boards is different, some of those same legal restrictions still apply, while users can operate behind their site persona, they are still liable and responsible for the comments or statements they make, and in some cases, the operator of the forum can be legally forced to disclose the identity of the poster of content on a site.

If someone posts something that's clearly legally dangerous, the safest thing to do is to remove it, simply because doing anything else is likely to encourage trolls to jump on to the theme, and escalate a minor incident into something that can become a massive issue and then spread to a wider audience, and that's even more the case now, with the almost instant access to things like Facebook and Twitter (etc), once something is "out there", it can take on a life of its own, even if its completely wrong, inaccurate and legally dangerous.

OK, that's a long way from the original aspect of why there's no feedback about posts that are reported, but the underlying reason is that if you start discussing something, it can escalate into all manner of problems, and the moderators have a life outside of boards, and if being a moderator on boards becomes more than so onerous, (and it can, very easily), then that moderator will leave, and everyone is diminished slightly as a result.

We might not always like the fact that moderation seems to be divorced from the immediate day to day ebb and flow of the forum, but from over 20 years of experience, it's better for all concerned that we don't know who is behind the handles that are moderators, and don't get to be "buddies" with the moderators, as that whole "buddy" relationship can be soured instantly if a decision has to be made about a thread or direction that's moving into dangerous waters.

It would be wonderful if the moderators here could move posts about seat allocations, or check in times not to another forum, but to the website of the airline that's really responsible, but that won't happen any time soon, for the simple reason that the airlines won't fund that level of support, and too often, the people asking the questions are just being too darn lazy to do a google (or similar) search of the subject that they're asking about, so expecting them to read the forum charter, or FAQ's is a forlorn hope, and not likely to change any time soon.

It's also people not wanting to accept responsibility for their own lives, if they arrive at checkin late, having asked on an on line site, they can then bleat, "It's not my fault, yer man said we only needed to allow 50 minutes to get through, why won't you let us in", when the clear information on some part of the information on the airline site said to allow 2 hours, but they don't want to do it, so they're looking for a reason for their case to be "special" and not operate within the rules, and getting an online opinion often makes it good in their eyes.

So, going back to what needs to change here.

Very little needs to change.

There are times when it would be good to have the load spread across more moderators, but finding the right people to do that task is NOT easy, for all the reasons I've outlined above, and ideally, the moderators in a specialist forum like aviation do need to have a background in aviation, so that they can sort out who's genuine, and who's never been near a real flight deck of any sort in their life. Then you have the problem that there are other disciplines in aviation, like engineering, and ground handling, and Air traffic control. so do you have to have moderators with those specialist areas of knowledge? It gets complicated very quickly.

My instinct is that now the schools and colleges are back, things will settle down, and the angst of recent weeks will subside. I'd be surprised if it doesn't, based on past history, August is always the silly season in a number of areas online.

99% of the time, the moderators here operate with the Wisdom of Solomon, and the patience of Job, and we should be happy that they do, and even more so given that there are effectively only 3 of them for Aviation. Changing that system could end up with a place that's more like Pprune, and for the majority of the membership here, that would be a retrograde move that I fear could see significant numbers leaving and not returning.

I'd prefer not to see that happen.

keith16 wrote: »

I'd disagree with this myself. For the same reasons you wouldn't want to split this forum for professionals only, I would say it's fine to have mods with no professional background.

If you have spent any amount of time on boards, it is easy to spot trolls.

Similarly, anyone with a bit of common sense should be easily able to spot spoofers, regardless of which subject it is they are spoofing about.

It's not so easy when there are very specific and complex rules that control what happens in the industry, and it got very messy in the flight simulation arena, where certain people would be categoric that they were right, even when we had people available to the senior moderators who could provide chapter and verse that they were wrong.

I don't for a moment suggest that all the moderators should be "professional background people", not at all, that would not be at all a good way to go, but the moderators do need to be able to have background access to people who they can absolutely rely on for correct information about things that could cause them severe legal issues further down the road.

I know from "information received" that one of the sites that I used to be very close to have had to deal with a number of "cease and desist" actions from a number of airlines that didn't like some of their dirty washing related to accidents and incidents being aired in public.

When the full information was put into the public domain, the airlines concerned were forced to back down, as the reports that were produced were completely accurate, frighteningly so, but it needed some very accurate information to deal with that, which could only come from professionals who were very close to the industry.

In the same way, we had severe issues with some of the more fanatical flight simulation followers, who made life very difficult by arguing that black was white about specific and very detailed handling procedures for commercial aircraft types.

The Airlines have slightly different procedures for some aspects of their operation, less so now than 20 years ago, when standard operating procedures were still being refined and updated, but there were times when some exceedingly heated arguments developed about how some things were done, and it was essential to manage those arguments, for the good of the rest of the membership, and there were times when the moderators had to deal with perhaps 200 "flame" messages a day, which took a massive amount of valuable time, and some of those messages could only be dealt with by making them invisible to the rest of the membership, sometimes permanently, and that decision had to be made by people who could stand over the decisions, in order to prevent major issues breaking out in other places. I can assure you, it wasn't easy, and it was supposed to be about a hobby, not even real world aviation.

So, yes, it would be bad to have the forum moderated by a team that was made up of aviation related professionals only, but the moderation team for sure have to have access to professionals for guidance, to ensure that wrong (possibly dangerous) information is not put out in ways that could result in dangerous practise.